My Uber rating is fine but I am obsessed with improving it

Friday, 15 February 2019

If James Walker's Uber rating was a perfect 5, maybe this stock image dude would pick him up.

OPINION: My Uber Rider Rating is 4.72 (out of five). To secure, well-adjusted people, this may sound like a perfectly reasonable score, not worth a further thought. However, I'm not a secure, well-adjusted person. I desperately crave positive affirmation from all my Uber drivers.

This fixation set in after a round of personal benchmarking. When I first found out about the Uber Rider Rating, I was curious how my 4.72 stacked up against others. After all, in any competition, a high score is only genuinely satisfying if it's better than those near and dear to you.

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So I started with my parents. Dad revealed a 4.92, and my Mum a 4.89. Their superior scores made no sense given I learnt to ride in the passenger seat, politely and responsibly, under their tutelage.

The only questionable passenger habit I picked up from them is, on long road-trips, to be the first to yell 'white horse', whenever we passed one in a paddock. However, I've never done this from the back of an Uber. I learnt as an adult there's a time and place for highway hijinks like 'white horse.'

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Talking to my parents did give me some insight why this obsession was taking hold of me. Dad celebrated his 0.03 advantage on Mum by high-fiving my sister and singing Simply the Best. Mum was livid. She hates when Dad gets an opportunity to do his Tina Turner.

'James, who do I talk to about a recount?' Mum demanded. Mum has a Masters in Linguistics, tends her own topiary garden, and has a signed poster of Kim Hill by her desk. (I agreed with her immediately when she suggested that 'these were all surely the attributes of a five star'.)

I explained to her that it was futile, I'd already requested Uber review my own score, and my frequent emails had gone unanswered. After thinking about it for a few days, Mum decided her only option was to end her association with Uber, and ride solely with Corporate Cabs, 'a service with more leg room and less judgment'.

Unsettled by how that all played out with my parents, and what it revealed about my inherited ugly competitive streak, I should have just made peace with my rating.

But I didn't. Instead, I went to my best friend and flat mate for further comparison. In my mind, I had to at least be on par with him. Recently he clocked Netflix, including the foreign language section, and loves to talk widely about this 'achievement'. I figured he must have bored the occasional Uber driver.

I asked Mark, whose name I have changed for the protection of his privacy, about his rating. At the time he was slow cooking a lamb roast, and re-watching the Bollywood Netflix film Half Girlfriend.

His response ruined my afternoon. 'Have I really not told you this?' he said, 'I'm a full five star!'

I know should have been proud of his accomplishment, but I was filthy. I managed to respond, 'Congratulations. You must sit very courteously in the back of a Prius.'

You can now see why I have changed his name. Mark is effectively an A-list rider. Wherever he goes, hybrids cluster around him. It is true that he does have a particular way with Uber drivers. Last week, we were sharing an Uber, when the driver started to hum to Cat Stevens' Father and Son. Mark joined in. It escalated, and ended in harmony, with a lot of feeling.

With those closest to me significantly more amiable Uber riders, I went searching for solace in strangers. At parties over the summer, I'd start up conversation by asking people their Uber rider rating.

While unusual and arguably a little desperate, it transpired to be a surprisingly useful way of sizing up strangers, before committing to a longer conversation. After all, what's an Uber rider rating, if not an objective review of hundreds of your polite conversations? If I came across anyone in the mid-to-low fours, I'd politely excuse myself.

The lowest score revealed to me was by a woman at a work Christmas party, who was a 4.22. In part, it was a triumph to find someone I had such a margin over. It was also terrifying. I assumed this woman must be capable of just about anything.

I was most concerned about the likelihood of her vomiting uncontrollably on the seat next to her, which is where I happened to be sitting.